Asch’s Conformity Experiment on Groupthink

Look at this line. And now, look at these three lines. Can you tell which of them  matches that first line?

And how sure are you ? Hold that thought and listen to this story.  Because most people can get this wrong.

Once upon a time, on the eve  of a major religious holiday, a seven year old boy was observing his  grandmother as she poured an extra glass of wine. When the boy asked who the glass was for,  she said that it was for the prophet. The boy didn’t believe her, so his uncle  told him to just observe the glass closely.

Full of expectation, the boy watched  the glass intently, and suddenly, he thought he saw the level  of wine drop just a bit! In 1951, decades after the incident, our  boy became a pioneer in social psychology, determined to rationalize  what actually happened that fateful night. Did some of the wine really  disappear, or was he made to believe that?

To find out the truth, he devised an experiment  to investigate whether peer pressure can be strong enough to change our perception, and  make us believe in things that are not true. Solomon Asch's conformity experiment was  conducted with 123 white, male college students who were told to be part of a study in visual  judgment. Each student was introduced to a group of 6-8 other students, who were, in fact, actors  who already knew what the experiment was about.

The group was then gathered  in a classroom and shown two cards. The first with one line,  the second with three lines on it. Each student was then asked to say  aloud which line in the second card matched that first one.

The group was  seated in such a way that allowed the actors to respond first, leaving the  real participant to respond last. For the first two rounds, the fake students,  also known as confederates, gave the correct answer and the innocent student, known as the  subject, said whatever he thought to be true. In the third round, the actors began  to respond with a clearly wrong answer.

For the next 12 rounds, dubbed "the  critical trials", all the confederates would give the obviously wrong answer. So the innocent student could either ignore the majority or ignore the truth. So  what did the experiment tell the researchers?

Upon completing 18 rounds with all 123 subjects,  the experiment came to the following conclusion. 23% of the students always gave the right answer.  72% conformed to the majority at least once.

And 5% completely succumbed to peer pressure  and always gave the obviously wrong answer. Asch’s work also showed that if just one  other acting student responded correctly, the effect of peer pressure  decreased substantially. The experiment also showed that the opinions  of three peers are enough to influence a student to change his mind.

Increasing  the number beyond three confederates, did not increase the levels  of conformity among others. Or put differently; if 3 people  say something obviously wrong and there is no one to disagree with them, many  of us agree with the wrong answer and start lying, due to our deeply human desire to fit in. Since then, Asch’s experiment has been  successfully replicated many times and the effect remains significant, especially  among women and homogeneous peer groups.

In 1955, Asch famously said: “The tendency  to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white,  black. This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education  and about the values that guide our conduct.

” What do you think? Would you have  conformed or stuck to the truth? Do you see the Asch’s effect in your daily  life or in social media?

And what can we as adults or educators do to give young people today  the strength to stand up and speak the truth? Share your thoughts in the comments below! This and all other Sprouts' videos are  licensed under the Creative Commons.

That means teachers from all around the world  can use them in classrooms, online courses or to start projects - and  today, thousands already do! To learn how it works and download this  video without Ads or background music, checkout our website or  read the description below. If you want to support our  mission and help change education visit our Patreon - that's patreon.

com/sprouts.